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How to Compensate Employees for Overnight Travel
A common concern among roofing contractors is when and how to compensate
employees for travel time. Many roofing contractors are unaware of the circumstances that
require them to pay employees for time spent traveling to and from work. If you mistakenly
assume the time an employee spends traveling to and from work is not compensable, you may be
surprised if you are audited by the Department of Labor and consequently required to pay large
sums for back wages and applicable interest. The most commonly misunderstood type of
employee travel requires employees to stay out of town overnight. This type of travel legally is
referred to as overnight travel.
During overnight trips, the time an employee spends traveling as a passenger during
typical work hours, including weekends, must be compensated, because the employee is
substituting travel for other duties. You are not legally obligated to compensate employees for
travel time that falls outside regular work hours except when the employee is required to drive.
For example, say a southeastern Michigan roofing contracting company with typical
work hours of 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, sends an employee to a two-day safety
training conference in Chicago. The employee travels by bus to Chicago on Wednesday from 10
a.m. to 3 p.m. The company must pay for these five hours of travel because they occur during
the employee’s typical work hours. The employee returns home by bus on Saturday traveling
from 2-7 p.m. The company must pay for the two hours from 2-4 p.m. because these hours occur
during the employee’s typical work hours. Compensation for the first two hours is required
though the employee typically does not work on Saturdays; however, the time spent traveling
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from 4-7 p.m. is not compensable because the employee is a passenger, and these travel hours fall
outside the employee’s regular working hours.
The situation would change if the employee chose to drive his or her own car rather than
take public transportation. In such a scenario, the roofing company may, but is not required to,
count the entire time the employee spends driving as hours worked. The employer is required to
compensate the employee for the driving time incurred during typical work hours.
So what happens if the employee arrives at a Chicago bus station and must drive an
additional two hours to the location of the safety training conference? In this case, because the
employee is required to drive during time outside typical work hours, the travel time is
compensable.
Consider a roofing crew that is assigned to work at an out-of-town roofing project requiring
the crew to be out of town for several weeks. In this case, assume the company’s typical work
hours are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. The crew will be driving to the project in a
company van that leaves at 1 p.m. on Sunday, and the drive to the project site takes five hours. In
this instance, the passengers in the vehicle are to be paid for the time spent traveling from 1-3 p.m.
on Sunday because these hours fall within the roofing company’s normal work hours (even though
it is a Sunday). The time spent traveling as a passenger from 3-6 p.m. is not compensable.
However, for the driver who is assigned the task of driving the crew to the work site—therefore
requiring that person to drive—the entire time spent driving is compensable, including the time
that does not occur within the driver’s regular working hours.
Taking this example a step further, what if the crew wants to return home for the weekends
during the project? Is the time spent traveling home compensable? Whether the travel time is
compensable in this instance depends on whether the travel home is truly voluntary. Companies
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that pay for employees’ overnight lodging on the weekends are in a much better position to argue
that travel home for weekends is voluntary. On the other hand, if lodging expenses are not covered
by the company, it is unlikely the employees’ trips home on the weekends will be considered
voluntary, and, therefore, the company would need to comply with overnight travel pay
requirements.
Roofing contractors often inquire whether travel time is compensable if a company’s policy
is to pay per diem and/or mileage to employees. According to law, an employer is obligated to pay
for travel when required under the law regardless of whether an employer also offers employees per
diem and/or mileage pay.
Another issue roofing contractors frequently confront is whether to pay employees different
travel-time rates than their regular work rates. Provided an employer pays at least minimum wage
for all hours worked, traveling work time and ordinary work time, an employer can pay employees
different travel-time rates. If this is the practice adopted by your company, it should be adequately
communicated to employees in a memo, employee handbook or other communication tool, and you
should provide employees with at least 30 days advance written notice of any change in policy.
Lastly, those employers who choose to pay employees a different rate for travel time will have to
determine the regular work rate when calculating overtime pay. Compensable travel hours are
required to be counted toward the standard 40-hour workweek.
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